It’s a Grind Coffee franchise: what happened?
Are you familiar with the It’s a Grind Coffee franchise opportunity? If so, please share your experience, opinions or insights with a comment below.
If you are a It’s a Grind Coffee franchise representative or employee, please leave a comment or email us at UnhappyFranchisee[at]gmail.com.
Data released by the Small Business Administration (SBA) indicates that It’s a Grind Coffee franchise owners who qualified for SBA-backed franchise loans have an extremely high loan failure rate of 36%.
That qualifies It’s a Grind Coffee for inclusion in UnhappyFranchisee.com’s list of WORST FRANCHISES IN AMERICA (by SBA loan defaults)
The inability to repay an SBA-backed loan (or any franchise loan, for that matter) indicates a serious situation for the franchisee.
It’s likely that It’s a Grind Coffee franchise owners who received SBA loans may have collateralized their franchise loan with their homes or other personal assets, and many were unable to repay those franchise loans… despite the serious incentive to do so.
On GlassDoor.com, Former N/A in Long Beach, CA wrote:
It’s A Grind was a rising star in the specialty food business as a franchise…one of perhaps a handful out of 100’s that was worth consideration…strong business model, great product, but alas they lacked leadership and did not communicate at all with their directors and vice-presidents let alone manager levels…as the challenges of operating a nationwide business grew the Founder, CEO and CFO simply became more and more clandestine and unapproachable. When you hire into an organization the expertise you believe you need, those team members expect to be part of the process…
Cons – Poor to non-existent communication and feedback from senior management. Later on, lack of funding and management compentency created huge challenges in product distribution making it next to impossible for their franchise units that were more than 500 miles away to create a profitable business…if you can’t get the products needed to fulfill the customers requirements, even in a market that isn’t price sensitive you still have a formula for doom! In a franchise the one thing you can never do is expect to make up your financial losses by increasing franchise fee’s and other internal fixed costs. It’s A Grind ran frightened. They did all the classic things a sinking franchise ship would do. It was sad to watch.
What do you think accounts for the SBA loan failure rate of It’s A Grind franchise owners?
What steps should It’s A Grind have taken to stop further franchise failures?
Did It’s A Grind take serious action to address the problems that led to these loan failures?
Please share a comment (anonymous is fine) or Contact UnhappyFranchisee.com.
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It’s A Grind, It’s A Grind franchise, It’s A Grind franchise complaints, It’s A Grind complaints, coffee franchise, coffee shop franchise, food franchise, retail franchise, franchise failure rates, SBA franchise loans, worst franchises, unhappy franchisee,
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Its a grind was the worst investment I ever made. The owners of the franchise had lawyers threaten franchise owners when they questioned the product distribution companies that we had to work through. In one case over 50 franchise owners assembled to question the ceo and coo about current practices and instead of helping us with our situation, they had lawyers sue the people who organized the event.
In another situation, my first week as a franchise owner, the previous owner did not pay his bill, so my first week at the helm, I could not order any product which cost me around $2K. When I called Marty cox on the issue, he yelled at me and said, if I was not happy I should sell my store. I wish I had done that instead of owning it for 2.5 years.